


Scildend

by kalirush



Category: Beowulf (Poem)
Genre: Gen, Post-Canon, Sort of? - Freeform, dragon - Freeform, hero - Freeform, modern au?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-18
Updated: 2018-12-18
Packaged: 2019-09-21 19:10:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17048957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kalirush/pseuds/kalirush
Summary: Sam sprinted alongside the road, the satchel bouncing against his back. The long grass whipped around his feet, but he liked the grass better than the gravel. He dodged up the walk, taking the stairs to the porch in two hops. He banged on the screen door. “Mr. Wiggie!”





	Scildend

**Author's Note:**

  * For [all_these_ghosts](https://archiveofourown.org/users/all_these_ghosts/gifts).



> Thanks to my betas, Charles and CenozoicSynapsid.

_Wīglāf wæs hāten Wēoxstānes sunu  
lēoflīc lind-wiga lēod Scylfinga_

\--------------------------

Sam sprinted alongside the road, the satchel bouncing against his back. The long grass whipped around his feet, but he liked the grass better than the gravel. He dodged up the walk, taking the stairs to the porch in two hops. He banged on the screen door. “Mr. Wiggie!” 

He waited, but there wasn’t an answer. He opened the door and poked his head in. He knew where Mr. Wiggie would be. He shut the door carefully behind him so as not to let the flies in, and went down the hall to Mr. Wiggie’s bedroom. He didn’t have a bed, actually, just a couple of old couches. He was sprawled out on one of them with no shirt on. He had a lot of chest hairs, most of them white. Sam tiptoed up to Mr. Wiggie’s head and poked him in the shoulder. “Mr. Wiggie!” he whispered, urgently.

One eye snapped open. “God, boy,” he said, “Why’re you here?” His voice was comfortably foreign, his vowel sounds round and rolling and his r’s sharp like popping corn. He groaned. “Your mama sent you, yah?”

“Yeah,” Sam said. He pulled the satchel off his shoulder and held it out. “Loaf of bread, and some freezer jam too.”

Mr. Wiggie sat up and took the satchel from him. “The strawberry kind?” he asked. “Yah. What’s she want, huh?” 

Sam put on a mournful face. “Washer won’t wash,” he said. “She was runnin’ a load last night and it stopped right in the middle. She had to rinse it all in the kitchen sink. It’s hangin’ all over the house, like we were livin’ in a bazaar or somethin’.”

Mr. Wiggie grunted once. It might have been half of a laugh. He rubbed his face with both hands, one of them a normal old man’s hand, and one of them with a shiny scar all down the back of it. “Loaf of bread won’t fix no washer,” he said. “But I like that jam. You tell her I’ll be by, yah? At least look at it.”

“Yeah,” Sam said.

“Now, go,” Mr. Wiggie said. “Don’t need _ungebeard_ boys runnin’ round my house.”

“Got better things to do anyhow!” Sam called, already running back down the porch steps. Out from the porch steps, there was the green smell of bruised grass, and the gravel road beyond it, and the pavement beyond that, all the way back to home.

\--------------------------

_Wīglāf maðelode sunu Wīhstānes_  
_dēað bið sēlla þonne edwītlīf._

\--------------------------

Mr. Wiggie had the washer near on completely apart before he noticed Sam was watching him from behind the flowery sheet that they used as the door of the laundry room. “Come on out,” he said, with a sigh.

“You figure out what’s wrong?” Sam asked, perching criss-cross on top of a box of bulk paper towels.

“I got a pretty good idea,” Mr. Wiggie said. “But I got to make sure. The washer, she ain’t much of a riddle, but if I get lazy, your mama will have more problems down the line.” He picked up a wrench, his big one, and started detaching a bit of hose.

“How’d you learn to fix washers?” Sam asked. People kept asking him what he wanted to be when he grew up, so he’d been considering different options lately.

Mr. Wiggie shrugged. “Here and there,” he said. “It’s nice that they don’t change so much, these washers. Pretty much the same for a long time. Other things, I couldn’t do it. Computers, yah?”

Sam nodded sagely. “Did you learn in your country?” he asked. He scrunched up his face. “Do they have washers there?”

Mr. Wiggie snorted. “No, I didn’t learn there. Maybe they have washers now, but I haven’t been back in… a real long time. No washers when I lived there. I had to learn here in America. Was a guy named Mikey, he taught me.”

“Huh,” Sam said. “What did you do in your country then?”

“I was a king,” Mr. Wiggie said, and shrugged. “For a while.” He pulled the hose off and peered at it. 

Sam stared at him. “Why did you leave, if you were the king?” he asked.

“I wasn’t a very good king,” he said. He shrugged again. “Merovingians,” he said, as though that explained everything. “She’s got a burnt out motor,” he said. “But the rest looks pretty good. Tell your mama, I’ll replace this hose and the motor, put her back together. I’ll only charge her parts if she keeps sendin’ me that jam a while, yah?”

“Okay, I’ll tell her,” Sam said, still staring. 

\--------------------------

_Oft sceall eorl monig ānes willan  
wrǣc ādrēogan swā ūs geworden is_

\--------------------------

“Did you know Mr. Wiggie was a king?” Sam said, a week later. His mom was making pies, and he was helping line the pans with the crust, smushing the top edges with a fork.

“Did he say that?” she asked, stirring the peaches on the stove. He could smell them from the table.

“Yeah, he said he was a king in his country, but he had to leave because he was a sucky king,” Sam said. 

“Language,” Mom said, but she didn’t really mean it. If he’d said a really bad word, like maybe _shitty_ , then she’d’ve been mad. She just objected to _sucky_ on reflex, maybe. 

Sam corrected himself anyway. “ _Bad_ king.” 

“I’m not sure,” she said. “I’ve never known Mr. Wiglaf to be much for talking about himself, and it’s rude to pry.” 

Sam started smoothing the tin foil over top of the crusts. “That’d be weird,” he said. “A king, here in Cooper County.”

“It’s a big, complicated world,” Mom said. “Sometimes weird things happen in it. Sometimes, even here in Cooper County.” She gasped, and pulled the pot off the stove. “Sam, honey, I don’t know what happened-”

Sam came over and hopped up on the footstool to look in the pot. The peaches- they’d been bright and yellow and sweet. Now they’d gone all mushy, and brown, and they smelled bad. 

“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” Mom said. She sounded really upset. “We’ll just have to put those crusts in the freezer until we can get more fruit to put in them. I just don’t know what happened! They were fine a moment ago-”

“It’s okay,” Sam said. “I guess we’ll just have surprise pie sometime.”

“Yeah. Definitely,” she said, and started spooning the peach mush into the insinkerator.

\--------------------------

_Hūru se snotra sunu Wīhstānes_  
_ācīgde of corðre cyniges þegnas  
syfone tōsomne þā sēlestan_

\--------------------------

Mr. Wiggie drove a pickup truck. It was blue, with rust patches on the sides. There were toolboxes and bits of hoses and things in the back. Sam hopped up on the running board and tucked one arm over the open window. 

“What d’you want now?” Mr. Wiggie asked, one hand on the shifter, and the other looped over the top of the steering wheel. 

“Can I come with you?” Sam asked. He held up a sack of jam jars with his other hand. “Mom sent me.”

“You don’t have better things to do?” Mr. Wiggie frowned at him. “I ain’t gonna put on a show for you. I got to drain the water heater out at the Williams place.”

“Nope,” Sam said. “It’s summer; I don’t have any better things to do.”

“I was your mama, I bet I could find you something to do,” Mr. Wiggie grumbled. But he reached over and unlatched the door. 

Sam swung himself into the cab and handed over the jam. He pulled the seatbelt over himself as Mr. Wiggie put the truck into gear. They were quiet for a bit, the truck bumping over the dirt road up to Mr. Wiggie’s place.

“Were you really a king?” Sam blurted out, finally.

Mr. Wiggie frowned. “You think I’m lyin’ about these things?”

Sam blushed. “No- I don’t know. If you were a king, why are you here? And don’t kings have a lot of money and gold and things?”

Mr. Wiggie snorted. “I had gold and things, yah. Not like you mean. _Eahta mēaras_ , _fǣted-hlēore on flet tēon, in under eoderas; þāra ānum stōd_ , _sadol searwum fāh, since gewurþad_. That sort of thing.”

“What does that mean?” Sam asked, goggling. “Is that your language?”

“It means horses.” Mr. Wiggie blew out his breath. “That was the wealth of the king. Horses, and armor, and swords, and the _earmbēaga_ , the arm-rings that you gave to your men. All gold and shining. Yah, I had all that.”

“What happened to it?” Sam asked.

“I already said.” Mr. Wiggie glared at him for a moment, before turning back to the road. “Wars. When I started bein’ king, the old king, he’s just died, yah? Everyone else thinks, they’re weak now, now we attack them. The Swedes, the Franks, the Merovingian king. It was years.”

Mr. Wiggie turned off into the Williams’ drive, the truck bouncing over the gravel. “Wars cost money,” he said. “You got to feed the men, you got to make sure everybody has weapons. Got to be a _bēaga bryttan_ , a generous guy, you got to give them rewards, yah?” He pulled the truck up next to the Williams’ barn, turned off the ignition. “You got to win battles, too. If you win battles, it’s easier.”

“Didn’t you win some battles?” They got out of the truck, and Mr. Wiggie handed him a toolbox to carry. It was heavy, but Sam was determined not to let it show. Mr. Wiggie grabbed a bucket and some more boxes and headed for the Williams’ door. Miz Williams answered the door and let them in. They went off to the laundry room, and Sam finally got to put his toolbox down. He waited a minute and then sat on it.

“Yah, some,” Mr. Wiggie said, startling him. He was poking at the water heater, turning some knobs and switches. “I won some battles. Not enough. I wasn’t as good a king as my… as the old king was. Not as good as he thought I’d be.” He patted the water heater. “The hose-” he said waving at Sam.

Sam grabbed it and brought it over. Mr. Wiggie screwed it onto a pipe and then went rummaging in the toolbox for a wrench. 

“So you had to come here?” he asked. “‘Cause you lost the war?”

“Nah,” Mr. Wiggie said. He used the wrench on the hose and then started poking at switches some more. “I didn’t come here for a long time. Didn’t lose the war either. Another guy, he took over bein’ king.”

Sam stared. “You just gave up bein’ a king?” he asked.

Mr. Wiggie climbed up on a stool, messing with the top of the water heater. “You can only be a king, you got guys to follow you,” he said. “I pissed them all off real bad. You don’t shame a man, you want him to have your back, yah? They might have forgiven me, I’d’ve won more battles, but I didn’t.” He waved at Sam. “Grab that bucket, take it outside. Stick it on the back porch where it ain’t gonna get water on anything that matters.”

Sam took the bucket and the hose and carried them outside. The hose gurgled and twitched, and the water started to flow. Sam looked down. “Mr. Wiggie?” he called. “Is it supposed to look like that?”

The water was coming out black and thick like molasses. It smelled bad, like septic tank stink.

“Nah,” Mr. Wiggie said. He was frowning, real deep. “Nah, it ain’t. Go get another bucket from the truck, okay?”

Sam went.

\--------------------------

_oð ðæt ān ongan  
deorcum nihtum draca rīcsian_

\--------------------------

Sam got stuck stirring the jam. He’d also gotten stuck cutting up the strawberries into pieces, and last week he’d got dragged along for the picking, too. His mom had gone to get all the jars cleaned out and left him to tend the pot. He was sweating like crazy. No amount of fan in the kitchen was gonna make a pot of boiling jam any less hot for the boy who had to stir it, and summer was hot enough as it was.

Still, he knew he’d regret it if he let the jam burn on the bottom. It wasn’t that his mom would be mad- he knew she wouldn’t. It was that she’d say _oh, honey_ , and she’d dump it all down the drain and she’d look so sad while she did it. He wondered if he looked pitiful enough when she got back though, maybe she’d make some lemonade or some iced tea and he could have some pie and go do _anything_ other than stir a giant pot of hot jam. He sighed.

“Sam, honey?” Mom called. “How’s it doing?”

“Fine,” he called back. His arms were starting to hurt, honestly. 

“Sam, it’s not burning, is it?” she called again. “I swear, I smell something burning.”

Sam frowned. “I don’t think so,” he said. But she was right- there was a burning smell. He sniffed the pot, looking over the sides and bottom, but it wasn’t coming from there. “It’s not the jam!” he called. “Mom?”

She appeared in the doorway. “I don’t know, sweetie,” she said. “I don’t think it’s coming from the house.”

“Can you stir the jam for a while?” Sam asked, trying to look pitiful. 

She smiled. “Sure, sweetheart,” she said. “You look hot. Go sit by a fan and read or something.”

He didn’t read, though. He ran outside, smelling the air. He could see a column of smoke off in the distance. Without quite knowing why, he started running toward that column.

Mr. Wiggie’s truck pulled up beside him, maybe a mile down the road. “Jump in,” he called, and Sam was only too happy to. “What’re you doin’?” Mr. Wiggie asked.

Sam shrugged. “I dunno,” he said. “I wanted to see what was goin’ on.”

Mr. Wiggie grunted, nodding. He was driving in the direction of the smoke. “You want to see where the fire, is yah?” He shifted gears. “Sammy, you’re a good boy. You would do what I said if things got scary, yah?”

There was something dangerous happening here. “Yes, sir,” he said, solemnly.

“Yah,” Mr. Wiggie said, and he sped up the truck, bouncing them over the road hard enough to throw Sam into his seatbelt.

The truck stopped suddenly on the side of a road, and Mr. Wiggie jumped out. After a moment, he gestured sharply at Sam, and he climbed down. Mr. Wiggie walked softly, his whole body tense, like he might jump six feet in the air at any moment. The air smelled like charcoal, like barbecue and the choking sharpness of a campfire in his face. It was hotter than it should be, almost hotter than standing in the kitchen stirring jam.

They came up to the top of the rise, and Sam could see where the smoke came from. It was a cornfield, but there were black stripes across it where the corn had been scorched into nothing. It was still burning in places, the green living corn resisting the spreading flames as best it could. Smoke rose in great plumes from the stripes. Sam’s eyes burned, and he coughed.

Mr. Wiggie turned. He dug out a handkerchief from his back pocket and tied it around Sam’s face. They went back to the car.

“Yah,” he said, as they drove back to Sam’s house, almost too soft to hear. “Yah, she’s here.”

“Who?” Sam asked. 

Mr. Wiggie shook his head. “I been lookin’ for her a long time,” he said. “Her mate, her boyfriend, yah? I helped to kill him.” He waggled his right hand at Sam, the scar on display. “Burned me good, but he’s dead and I’m not. I been waitin’ for her here. Knew she’d be here eventually.”

And then Mr. Wiggie explained.

\--------------------------

_nacod nīðdraca nihtes flēogeð_  
_fȳre befangen hī fold-būend_  
_swīðe ondrǣdað_

\--------------------------

Mom was upset when he got back, dirty and smelling of smoke. He got yelled at and hugged at the same time, and she thanked Mr. Wiggie eight separate times for bringing him home safe, and then he got sent to take a bath and go to bed.

Sam couldn’t sleep, though. His mind was racing with everything that Mr. Wiggie had told him. He closed his eyes and thought of dragons, sleek and winged and burning streaks across the sky. Burrowing in the earth, their fanged mouths dripping with poison. Scaled and slimy and dying of greed in their hearts, and flying through his sky, burrowing in his earth, poisoning the water right here, where he lived, where his mom lived. 

Sam heard a sound, like some great big bird screaming. He jumped up, pulled a t-shirt on, and had run out the house all quiet-like before he quite knew what was happening. He saw a flash in the sky, and he knew what it was. He ran as fast as he could, ran until his lungs burned and his legs throbbed, until he was flying up the gravel of Mr. Wiggie’s drive. 

Mr. Wiggie was standing to the side of the porch, a shovel propped up against the railing. He had dragged a box up from the dirt. Sam stood, holding his breath, rocking back on the balls of his feet.

Mr. Wiggie looked up. “Yah,” he said. “Come on inside. You can help me get it all on.” He hefted the box up onto his shoulder, and Sam followed him inside. 

Mr. Wiggie chucked the box onto the couch, and never mind about all the dirt either. He used a crowbar to get the top off, and then he pulled out a big knife to cut the plastic inside with. He pulled out a dark, heavy mass. It made a liquid clinking sound when it moved, and it shone of oil and metal. He lifted it over his head and dropped it down over his shirt. It came down to his knees, like a nightshirt, or a winter coat. “Give me the belt,” he said, waving a hand.

Sam jumped up and went to the box. He rummaged around and found a length of dark leather strap, which he handed over. 

“Now the sword,” he said. “It’s in the kitchen.”

Sure enough, there was a sword on the kitchen counter. Mr. Wiggie’s whetstone was out, too, but the sword was in its sheath now. Sam picked it up carefully and carried it back over. Mr. Wiggie looped it over the belt and tied both around his waist. 

After that, he put on a cloth hat, and then helmet. It made Mr. Wiggie look taller. 

“Now, the _bēaga_ ,” he said. He pulled out twisted rings made of gold, and looped them around his arms, latched them shut. 

Sam had never much seen gold before, not in person. But there was no mistaking that for anything else. It wasn’t as shiny as he’d always imagined it to be. But it was _rich_ , and deep, and redder than he would have thought.

“My lord gave me these,” Mr. Wiggie said. “ _Beowulf._ I sold the rest, the ones I got later, but I’ll die with these ones on.” He reached into the box one more time and came up with a huge shield, hefting it over his shoulder like it was a toolbox or a sack of concrete. “You’re a good boy,” he said, heading on outside. “I should have told you more about him. You’re gonna remember him for me, yah? I wasn’t the kind of king he thought I could be. But he was… he was the son of Ecgtheow, the wolf of the Geatlings, the Grendel-slayer, the king of fifty years’ peace. The dragon-slayer. He was a hero.”

Mr. Wiggie turned back to look at Sam. He was tall, and fierce, and he glittered in the porchlight.

Sam knew where Mr. Wiggie was going. “I’m going too,” he said.

“You’re too young to fight,” said Mr. Wiggie. “Don’t have no sword.”

“Don’t figure I’ll have to fight,” Sam said. But he was shaking, down into his sneakers. “I can’t let it hurt my mom,” he said, in a small voice. 

Mr. Wiggie looked him up and down, the way grownups did when they were going to tell you no. But- “get in the truck,” he said, finally.

“Yeah?” Sam said. He was already bouncing up to the door.

“Place I’m from, weren’t no such thing as too young to fight, anyway,” said Mr. Wiggie. He unbuckled something from around his waist and held it out to Sam. A knife in a plain leather sheath.

“You better not attack her without my say-so,” he said. “You’re gonna hold the shield, and you’d best do what I tell you, yah? But you take that too.”

Sam grabbed the knife and looped the long strap around his neck.

“There,” said Mr. Wiggie. “A gift, just like in the old days. Time to go now. Time for it to all be done.”

Sam peered into the dark. “How’re you gonna figure out where she is?” he asked.

Mr Wiggie rolled down the window and took a deep breath. “We ain’t gonna have trouble findin’ her. She knows it’s time. She’s comin’ to look for me, too.”

\--------------------------

_Oferhogode ðā hringa fengel_  
_þæt hē þone wīdflogan weorode gesōhte_  
_sídan herge_

\--------------------------

They followed the smell of dragon, sulfur and tar and venom wafting through the air like it was smoke. Now and again, Sam could hear screaming in the air. There were flashes in the sky he’d’ve thought were heat lightning, if he didn’t know better. He held Mr. Wiggie’s knife in one hand, feeling the weight of it. 

Then, all of a sudden, Mr. Wiggie stopped the truck. He jumped out and left Sam scrambling to grab the shield and catch up. He wasn’t sure where they were. It was dark and they were away from all the houses Sam knew. 

They came up on the top of a hill, and the dragon was there underneath them.

Like the color of gold, the dragon was both more and less than Sam had expected. He knew dragons from tv, from books, where they were fat and green with wings too small for their bodies.

The dragon in front of him was massive and terrifying, but it was real, too. A huge, reptilian beast. It was long and lean, twisted up in great coils like a snake. Its scales glittered dark and oily in the moonlight, and there were great, leathery wings folded to its side. It had claws at the tips of those wings the size of Sam’s forearm. Its head, though, looked like nothing so much as a gator- but the teeth were curved and wicked, the maw large enough to swallow Sam whole. 

It saw Mr. Wiggie and it howled, screeching and furious.

Mr. Wiggie stood on the hillside, and drew his sword. The metal was bright with oil. “We’re gonna do this now,” he bellowed. “We killed him! _I_ killed him! Let’s be done with it!”

And they fought. Mr. Wiggie handled the sword like he knew how to use it, stabbing and slicing. But the dragon curled and writhed around him, surrounding him with its dark coils, striking with its huge claws. Every time Mr. Wiggie drew the dragon’s blood, it got some of his right back. 

Sam waited, not knowing what to do, holding the shield. His heart felt like it was beating so hard he could feel it in his fingertips. _Mr. Wiggie could die_ , he realized. _The dragon could kill him. The dragon could kill_ me _._ And he wanted to run, worse than he’d wanted anything in his entire life, wanted to be home and safe in his bed with his mom in the next room over.

But Mr. Wiggie had given him the knife. He’d told him to hold the shield. Sam had _promised_.

Mr. Wiggie jumped back, waved at Sam, just like he waved when he wanted a hose or a wrench. Sam ran forward, and threw the shield to him, just as the dragon breathed fire at Mr. Wiggie.

It wasn’t just fire, he realized. It was a liquid, and it sizzled and smoked where it spattered the ground. 

Sam looked up again just in time to see the dragon’s tail whip around, its barb hitting Mr. Wiggie square in the back. Mr. Wiggie staggered, his face all surprised and hurt. The dragon reared back, opening its jaws up.

Sam didn’t even think. He had his knife out of its sheath and he slammed it as hard as he could into the nearest part of the dragon. Black blood oozed out around Sam’s fingers.

The dragon whipped around to look at him, and for a moment, Sam thought he saw surprise on its scaly, reptile face. Then Mr. Wiggie stabbed his sword right into its open mouth, right past those teeth, and into inside of the dragon’s head. It twitched and thrashed and whined, but they both knew it was dead.

Sam’s hand hurt where the blood had touched it, and he started crying, holding that knife, not knowing where to put it. 

Mr. Wiggie was there. He took the knife, and put a hand on Sam’s back. “Yah,” he said. “Yah, we get you home, put some milk on that.” 

They were driving back to Sam’s house before he realized what was wrong. Mr. Wiggie started breathing heavy, and he was sweating a lot under the helmet. Sam was too scared to ask him if he was okay.

When they pulled up to the house, Mr. Wiggie sighed heavy, and he turned the truck off. He held the keys out to Sam. “Give these to your mama,” he said. “Tell her, thanks for all the jam.”

Sam caught them as they dropped into his hands. “Mr. Wiggie?” he asked. “Mr. Wiglaf?”

And then Mr. Wiggie dropped out of the seat through the open door and into the dirt, like he was a puppet whose strings had got cut. Sam scrambled over the seat and down next to Mr. Wiggie. His eyes were still fluttering, and Sam didn’t know what to do. He started shouting for help.

Mr. Wiggie waved at him, just a twitch almost, and Sam quieted down. “You remember his name, yah?” he said, softly. “ _Beowulf_.”

Sam, nodded, and tears were running down his cheeks again. “I’m gonna remember your name, too,” he said. “ _Wiglaf._ ”

Mr. Wiggie’s eyes closed again. Sam waited next to the truck for his mom to come.

\--------------------------

_þanan Wīglāf sunu Wīhstānes_  
_hī hine bebyrigde þǣr under bēame_  
_him ne ād byrneþ he in swā ellende wæs_  
_ac he wyrm acwealde ond hyne wyrd fornam_

\--------------------------

**Author's Note:**

> Then Wiglaf Weohstan’s son  
>  they buried him there under a tree  
>  for him, no pyre burns he was in such a far land  
>  but he killed the wyrm and fate took him away


End file.
